There’s something about being nearly a year into living here that makes it feel like we’ve accomplished a fair amount of “evolution” over the last 357 days (not that I’m counting…). I guess it’s because living somewhere for a month isn’t really a lot of time for tweak-age, but twelve of those in a row – well, it’s enough time to get things going. Like living with a floor plan for 11 months (just to be suuuuure) and then knocking out a wall that we’ve wanted gone from day one:

It’s also enough time to make a few furniture and accessory changes as we transition from working with what we have (like random stuff carried over from our first house) and first-instinct choices to a few more thought-out decisions. Yup, these things apparently take time – at least in our experience (remember this post on that subject?). So here’s the story about a pretty sizeable three-fer tweak of epic rug, ottoman, and chair proportions.

We haven’t made any major furniture/accessory purchases since the just-moved-in phase when we got our sectional, our first rug, our bed, and our big dining room table. Then we went on a building/DIY kick for the next almost-year (making our $104 console table and our $124 wall-to-wall double desk and saving nearly 4K by laying our own stone patio and getting a ton of estimates to save 3K on our kitchen wall-opening). We’ve mostly just been picking up super inexpensive secondhand furnishings since moving in (like our $35 desk chairs, $25 dining chairs, and four secondhand kitchen cabinets for our in-progress remodel for under $100).

So after many months of building up the savings account and waiting for things that we loved to come along, it felt nice to actually buy them. And since we had some “store credit” towards Joss & Main from curating a sale with them as a side gig (more on that here), we loved that we could put that towards our living room tweaks, especially because it’s one of our most used rooms, so we’ll definitely notice and appreciate it. But now onto what we tweaked and why…

For the last almost-year we have loved our fluffy green shag rug (it was great for a wiggly crawling baby and a wobbly toddler – and was so thick and inviting that many an adult found themselves sitting/lying on the floor). But there are a few issues that have popped up as Clara has grown.

# 1. Let’s just say that finding milk dripped and goldfish or cheerios crushed into our plush rug was less than pleasing. Yes, we’re one of those casual families who doesn’t have a no-food-in-the-living-room rule (I mean, peanut butter & jelly or a bagel with cream cheese isn’t living-room approved, but dry crackers and a sippy cup of milk are). That’s just how we both grew up and we really appreciate the this-house-is-not-a-museum vibe, so we plan to keep it that way. And although vacuuming or a bit of scrubbing (for spilled milk) got ‘er done (and Burger was awesome about hunting down the occasional goldfish before we even knew it’d gone missing) the rug was still a bit higher maintenance than a lower pile one would be now that we have an energetic toddler.

#2. The size. In our first house both our living room and den rugs were just 5 x 8′ since the rooms there were so small. So although we knew that our new living room was much larger, somehow an 8 x 11′ rug sounded like it had to be big enough for our 25 foot long room. Well… try as we might to “adjust” to it, it always felt a little small (we’re definitely still learning how to decorate a larger space). Like our giant sectional was just baaaarely contained on the boundaries of the rug:

So when I saw this giant (10 x 14!) 100% wool rug for $599 (down from $798) on Joss & Main I got excited. And nervous. That’s not exactly peanuts around here. But it’s a huge rug – and rugs that size that we like are usually 1-2K (which made me fake ugly-cry on at least three occasions). It almost felt impossible to find something extra large, low pile, and our style that didn’t end in three zeros. So $599 started to sound pretty good. At least good enough to contemplate for a little while.

After mulling it over for a few hours, I decided to show John to see what he thought (we have a full agreement agreement, so we don’t buy anything that we don’t both love). That way if he nixed it I could just close the window and stop thinking about it. But when I went to show it to John, he had it up on his screen (he also gets Joss & Main alerts and had clicked on that rug and left it open on his computer to “talk to me about it” a little later). Crazy, huh? We were both secretly mulling over the same rug. It was meant to be. So we gritted our teeth and put in our order. I’m not going to say that we didn’t have sweaty palms, but we went for it.

Since we’d been temporarily using a too-small placeholder-ottoman that didn’t have storage which used to reside in our first bedroom as a side table, we also found ourselves pining after this big tufted leather storage ottoman. Again, it’s not exactly a cheap addition to the room. At all. But nearly fourteen cubic feet of additional hidden storage was a huge draw (it’s almost 3 x 3 x 1.5 with an easy-open hinged top). Of course we also appreciated that it’s a correctly-sized counterpart to our giant sectional (as opposed to looking like a too-small donut hole) and that it isn’t hard and pointy for little toddler heads (but can be used for serving food & drinks with the addition of a nice big tray). Yup, she’s versatile. And we never could have sprung for it at 900 beans, but at over $500 off… well…

And then somehow this $169 chair (down from$339) said “how you doin’?”…

…which was especially convenient since the parson’s chair that we purchased for $70 from Target about four years ago was looking a little rough due to tons of use which led to one side of the faux-leather cracking so it looked like this:

So we waited patiently at the door for everything to arrive, pausing only to eat, sleep, change the baby, work on the kitchen, and blog. When everything arrived pretty much at the same time, it was sorta like Christmas. Literally, it kind of was (we declared these items to be our Christmas gifts to each other for last year, this year, and next year). Psst- pardon the rug wiggles, we still need to get a rug pad. And as for the art swap, I meant to blog about that a while back. It’s actually extra burlap-ish fabric that I used instead of the colorful paper. I love that it has more texture and doesn’t compete with the bright pillows and accessories.

Spending that kind of money on a rug and ottoman was definitely not a drop in the bucket for cheap-os like us. Heck even $169 for a chair isn’t usually our MO (we’re no strangers to spending $20-35 on thrift store or craigslist chairs). But it did feel nice to add up the sale savings ($199 + $521 + $170 = a whopping $890!). And more importantly, since we’ve worked our buns off to DIY so many projects over the last 11 months it meant that we were able to save a pretty nice chunk of change, so our bank account was thankfully just fine with the living room spree (we don’t like to buy anything we can’t immediately pay off – more on that here).

Of course we’re hoping to reuse the old round ottoman and the old living room rug in other still-evolving spaces (you know we’re use-what-you-got fans) and we might even try slipcovering the faux-leather chair in some fun fabric for another spot as well. So we’ll have to keep you posted on those cha-cha-cha-changes too. Of course we still have about a million other working-with-what-we-have items going on, like the wrong sized rug in the office, a too-small TV and media cabinet in the living room (we hope to build a nice media center to balance out our chunky distressed console table) along with many completely-missing elements (like a large buffet/console table with art and a rug in the entryway off of the dining area and an entire playroom and sunroom that have yet to be tackled along with all of our bathrooms). But we’ll get there someday.

Knowing that our first house took us 4.5 years to complete is a great comfort to us, because it takes away the we-want-it-all-done-now pressure. These things take time. But we’re feeling really good with our one-year-in progress (see a lot of that here). How about you? Do you have a “magic number” of months or years after living somewhere when you finally start to feel more settled and “evolved” (after feeling around in the dark for a few months while you get your bearings)?

Psst- To anyone looking to purchase the rug, ottoman, or chair – Joss and Main has flash sales (only lasting a few days) so of course by the time we got this stuff in the mail and took pics they weren’t for sale anymore. But lots of their stuff can be found on wayfair.com (though it’s not usually as heavily discounted over there) or you can get on Joss & Main’s mailing list here (that’s an instant invite, so you don’t have to wait). Hope it helps!

849 Comments

Sherry, I love! Really, really love. I think the rug fits the space perfectly! Maybe old shaggy McGee can end up in the sun room or something fun? Great changes! And those (discounted) splurges are well-deserved!! Beautimous.

I did this too to a cheap IKEA rug and it totally didn’t work. You can’t feel the caulking through the rug when you walk (good) but it still slides around on our hardwoods. Perhaps I used the wrong caulk but I’d skip this DIY.

I LOVE all of those pieces! I am hoping to splurge on a new rug in a year or so for our living room…but first the driveway needs to be redone and the kitchen. While I wait, I will drool and admire your kitchen remodel!

Anyway, before you purchase a rug pad, you might want to try this easy/cheap fix. Flip the rug upside down and use caulk to draw lines on the back. Once it is fully dry it keeps the rug flat and from slipping around because it has grippy like the bottom of toddler socks. We did this because our rug kept slipping where it wasn’t under furniture. Problem solved!

I actually just did this the other night (saw it on Pinterest too!). Might I suggest trying it out on an older rug first to see how you feel about the results? It may totally depend on the rug, but I found that I can feel the lines of caulk when I walk across it in my bare feet. My “rug” is actually a few carpet tiles so it’s a very flat weave. The lines don’t create a trip hazard or anything crazy like that and I don’t regret doing it, but I would hesitate before trying it on your big, beautiful, brand new rug.

Please don’t caulk the reverse side of the rug. If it’s the type of rug I think it is you can use either side up. This could be a big advantage if something disastrous happens to one side. Buy a really good rug pad, one with thick felt on one side and rubber on the other. It will protect your $599.95 investment.

We get rugs made out of high quality carpet remnants from a local carpet store. We have them bound at another local place. We also bought a super nice rug pad from the carpet store and it ended up being less expensive than the waffle-y things you get from Home Depot. It’s got felt and rubber like another commenter mentioned. It makes the rug feel so soft and cushy! It’s very luxurious feeling, and we all love to lay on the floor now. :) It will also protect your rug in the long run.

Duh-rool!! I am in LOVE with that ottoman and that is a fantastic price. The rug fits SO much better and brightens the space right up…and I love the color of that chair….everything looks beautiful. I absolutely love living room tweaks and updates, since that’s where we spend most of our time also. Now you just need a new TV console – get out the kreg jig, John! haha.

Everything seriously looks amazing!!! What an awesome improvement!
Rugs are so hard to bite the bullet on – so expensive and so tough to see in person – but everything ties wonderfully :)
Congrats and merry early Christmas!
PS – we too just bit the bullet on a great rug. Day 15 or so our pooch christened it with barfed up breakfast – do you have a good all natural spot cleaner you use?

Oh man, so sorry about that! We have some sort of eco spray that we got from Petco about four years ago (Burger’s pretty good about pottying outside so we haven’t used it much) so I’m not sure they still make it. It has an orange on the container and is all natural. Maybe it’s called Citrus-something? Hope it helps!

The living room looks AWESOME. So much more well-balanced than before and the green rub is DA BOMB. ;) I also really like the little side-tabley round white thing next to the couch. I don’t recall seeing that before—HomeGoods? I’ve seen something similar in there recently, only in metallic.

Love the changes! We just got a plushy rug for our family room similar to yours but cream colored. We love it, but I started having a bit of buyers remorse after a niece spilled sparkling cranberry on it at Thanksgiving! Thankfully we got it clean, but the juice got down between those high pile pieces and took a while to soak up. Live and learn right? :)

No wonder you swooned over that rug! It’s b-e-a-utiful!
It definitely brightens up the space a lot. Who would have thought that adding just a few small lighter tones like the lines in the rug, the ottoman, and the chair would make such a huge difference? LoveLoveLove it!

wow, what a huge difference! I LOVE everything you chose. Seriously, could you just come decorate my house already? I end up buying things and then when I see them in the room, I hate them, or they don’t go together. I think I need some inspiration ala Sue the napkin to keep me on track, or to make a mood board or something before I buy things.

The rug reminds me a lot of the pottery barn rug from your old living room (which I loved).

Also, I’m curious as to how your couch is holding up. I’m a few weeks away from ordering a custom Rowe couch (on sale til the end of the year), but of course I’m second guessing EVERYTHING! How’s Karl holding up and how’s your Rowe couch after a few years?

Karl is doing awesome (no complaints, he still looks and feels the same, he’s easy to wash, etc). As for our Rowe sofa, we sold the slipcovered white one a while back (but loved it right up until we sadly sold him because we had no spot for him) so he was a great durable choice too! We still have the green Rowe sleeper sofa that used to live in our office/guest room (in the sunroom these days) but we’re not sure where he’ll land. He’s a great durable sofa too!

Hey Lindsey – my husband and I bought two Karlstaad couches (in the same color) this summer and we love them. Like Sherry says, they are durable, easy to keep clean, and also they are holding their shape well. Our old couch was a huge, very soft, HUGE behemoth that was too big for the room but I was nervous that the Karls wouldn’t be as comfy and that I’d miss a high back. Turned out that neither turned out to be true. Napping *was* more comfy on the old couch but my back would hurt afterwards … my posture is better on the Karls. And I love that the color is neutral and grounding – we’ve been having fun will pillows like our friend Sherry. :)

Thanks! I think I’m going with the Rowe because I like the fabric choices better and the one I want has a tight back, also my closest Ikea is 8 hours away. I’m also checking out some Macy’s couches, even though I abhor going to the mall in December. My biggest concern is sagging back cushions, which is a huge problem with my current sofa. Here’s hoping that I find something beautiful and durable!

Can I just say Merry Christmas?! I looove these kind of purchases. I am, like, all excited for you. lol Everything looks fantastic in the room! I have purchased 2 Becca chairs a while back from Overstock and I absolutely love them!!! Now, of course, I want a bigger rug for our family room. I must not tell my husband where I am getting this idea from, or he just might block your blog fro me or something ;).

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Hey, we're Sherry & John. This is where we chronicled 7 years of our lives as we fixed up 3 homes, had 2 children, became accidental authors and product designers, and shared our adventures (and misadventures) with the world. Now it's a time capsule of sorts, complete with nearly 3,000 posts, projects, and updates.